Samaritan's Purse Christmas event

Today was the first of two special Christmas events that our church is doing as part of our Samaritan's Purse Christmas gifts distribution (we didn't get the gifts until a couple weeks ago, so Christmas came a little late to Kaharlyk). I played guitar for some Christmas songs, there was a puppet show of the Christmas story, refreshments (chocolate cake!), games, and of course presents.

Here are some pictures:

Our monthly Senior's evening, during which I become stage manager for a trio of 8 year olds

Last night was the monthly evening for Senior Citizens at Calvary Chapel Kaharlyk.

For us it started at 2pm when I dropped off Liese and 30 pounds of potatoes.  I then went to stand in line at the post office in order to pick up a parcel that had come in the mail for us (it turned out to be the best care package ever).

Upon returning to the church I managed to get stuck in the ice ruts outside of the church. Twice.  For the last two months people have been getting stuck trying to get in and out of the church's driveway and I've managed to maneuver in and out with relative ease.  But not yesterday.  Twice in the space of about 5 minutes.  It all turned out okay once someone came and pushed me out.

The menu for the evening was baked fish, mashed potatoes, salad and cake for dessert.  A lot of people showed up to help and everything came together nicely.  I had to kick everyone out of the kitchen a few times, the last time because they wouldn't stop washing dishes and I was trying to get the high school boys to actually do something.

Just before we served dinner I found out that Josie Claycamp, Anya Zahurska, and their friend whose name I don't know wanted to sing a couple songs.  I quickly took charge of the situation as last time they performed . . .we'll just say it didn't go too well and leave it at that.  I ushered them into the back room and asked them what song they were going to sing.  They said there were two songs, and the first one was... I interrupted them to remind them that they were only singing one song. They were kind of confused on that point but quickly caught on and then sang me the song.  After listening to it all the way through I wondered if they had indeed practiced it or just kind of read it from their song book.  Anya was dragging out the words and slowing the melody down so I told her that.  She looked at me kind of confused and so I told her to listen to Josie who was singing it correctly.  To which she responded "So, I should probably sing louder then, right?"  I almost laughed out loud but managed to keep my composure and got them to sing the song through about six more times.  They ended up giving their best performance yet. 

There were a few other songs (including Misha and Tanya Fylin rocking "Our God is an Awesome God" with Maria Vasilivna singing harmony), Wayne taught a bible study to prepare for Easter,  Josie Sprague sang a couple songs in English, and I think everyone had a good time –  I was washing dishes with the high school boys so I didn't see it all.

Making some progress on our remodel

Today, after living in our house for a year and a half, we finally painted the bathroom.  Two coats of paint on the ceiling and the walls, not bad for a day's work.  I finally got a decent roller extension pole which made the painting go a lot faster and made me feel like I was doing something right. 

There was a bit of anxiety over the color – we went back and forth for nearly a year trying to decide if yellow was the right choice, and if so, would we get the right shade and hue – and once it was on the walls it was a bit of a shock. 

 Here is a picture of how the room looked when we bought the house.

 

Global Mission Mondays

This week we'll be praying for the country of Japan at our church's weekly prayer meeting.

Some facts about Japan that I gleaned from Wikipedia, The CIA World Factbook, and the Joshua Project website:

Japan's population is 127 million people, the 10th highest in the world.  It also has the 10th highest standard of living.  The economy of Japan is huge, the second largest in the world (if you don't count the EU as a country).  Most (85-95%) of Japan's population follows Shintoism, Buddhism or a combination of the two. But only about 30% actually practice these religions.  Wikipedia tells us:

Religion in Japan tends to be syncretic  in nature, and this results in a variety of practices, such as parents and children celebrating Shinto rituals, students praying before exams, couples holding a wedding at a Christian  church and funerals being held at Buddhist  temples.

About 2% of the population is Christian.  A culture driven by material success has made many Japanese closed to the gospel and skeptical of religion.

Feel free to leave comments if you know of any ways that we can better pray for Japan, any specific needs in the Church or missionaries in Japan.

Lessons in missions

I've been reading the news about the 10 Americans who got arrested in Haiti for trying to take children across the border without legal documents for the kids.  Each time I read a news update I think the lesson we can all learn from this is: don't be stupid.

I was going to write about not being naive about laws, helping children, missions, etc.  But I think that that stupid is a stronger word and I use it because these people should have known better.  Not only should they have known better but their churches who sent them should have known better.   They should have researched international law to find out how to bring children into another country.

They should have read their bibles and seen that helping people escape from a bad situation isn't necessarily the best way to help people.  These children didn't simply need a "better life" in an orphanage, they needed to be with their families and their families needed help to rebuild their lives in a ruined country. But instead these churches opted to use their resources to build an orphanage in another country, spending money and resources in the Dominican Republic.  Rather than rebuilding Haiti and helping families, orphans, and suffering people, they decided to simply relocate kids.  In so doing they broke the law, caused more problems for Haiti, ended up in jail, and wasted more money and resources that could have been invested in helping rebuild lives.

This may sound harsh, but I live in a country where it is all too easy to think that rules don't matter; laws are made to be bent or overlooked; and orphans live horribly wretched lives.  But it would just be stupid to try to rescue them by trying to bring them into Europe or the US, or by some shady adoption program.  Those should not be options for Christians.  Instead we should be investing our time, our resources, and even our lives into changing the circumstances that have led to the children needing this help.  We should be investing in the orphanage systems, caring for foster children, helping struggling families so that their kids don't end up as wards of the state.

Yes, the situation in Haiti is different.  There is more urgency in the needs there.  But the more urgent the needs of people the more we need to not act stupidly lest we make those needs worse.

Mark Driscoll's book "On Who is God"

We just had an In Lumine meeting (iChat is awesome) and I found out that the russian translation for Mark Driscoll's "A book you'll actually read: On Who is God?" is done. We are going to publish the whole series; On the Old Testament, On the New Testament, and On Church Leadership. One translation down, three to go. The cool thing about this project is that these are our first books to be funded by In Lumine book sales and not donations.

We are hoping to get two of these titles fully printed in time for a national Christian book fair in April. Here is the design for the books so far:

I also found out that we've sold a big shipment of books in Belarus. It is great to see our distribution network expanding and people reading our books.

Global Mission Mondays

The country we are praying for this week is Taiwan, the seat of the Republic of China (not to be confused with The People's Republic of China).  

Taiwan has a population of 23 million people, 98% of whom are Han Chinese who started immigrating to the island of Taiwan in the 17th century.  Natives to the island make up the other 2% of the population and are comprised of about 13 ethnic groups. 

In contrast to China, Taiwan has religious freedom and among the majority of the population Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism make up 93% of those practicing religion.  5% are Christian (Protestant and Catholic).  In most of the minority ethnic groups up to 80% of the group is Christian.

Election results

Victor Yanukovych, the man whose election fraud sparked the "Orange Revolution" 5 years ago, won the majority in this week's runoff election and is now President-Elect of Ukraine. 

Many people are disappointed with the results of the elections and fear that Ukraine will follow Russia's lead in weakening democracy and eroding personal freedoms. We'll see how that goes.  Here are a couple of articles that some friends linked to that shed some light what is going on in Ukraine and what the options are: The Globe and Mail: Ukraine's not lost to Europe (via Ethan Larson), Open Democracy: Ukraine: Yanukovych’s limited mandate (via Sarah Torrence).

I've got two thoughts.  One, Ukraine has built up a lot of momentum over the last five years in the area of democracy.  While it is true that corruption has gotten worse, Ukraine has held 3 free elections and built a lot of ties with Europe that will be difficult to reverse given the economic needs of Ukraine right now.   The second thought is that God is really the one who decides who will be president and it is not an accident that Yanukovych is president today.  Yeah, he may not be everyone's choice for president, and many think he won't be great, but God is still in control and still knows what He is doing.

In America many seemed to think that George W. getting elected a second time was pretty much the end of the world, and then the rest of America had the same reaction four years later when Obama was elected.  The world is still here, God is still in charge and though Obama and Yanukovych may not be my personal choices, I probably would not have chosen Pilate to rule Jerusalem or Nero to rule Rome. Yet Jesus made it pretty clear that God gave Pilate power and the Apostle Paul made it pretty clear that being a Christian means praying for Nero and submitting to Rome's authority. 

Same goes with us today: pray for the president and give him the honor due his post.

Home group

On Wednesday nights we have a home bible study group at our friends' the Simenenko's house. The format is pretty laid back, as everyone shows up we drink tea and hang out. Then if someone brought a guitar we sing, if not we share things God has done in our life and then start discussing Sunday's sermon. If we have time left (sometimes the discussion gets lively) we then study inductively through a section of scripture. Our goal is to have a time of fellowship, a place to ask questions about Sunday's sermon, and grow in our ability to study God's word. Some weeks the home group can be very humbling for me as I hear what people remember or understood from my sermon. We usually study through an epistle but a couple months ago we started studying the gospel of Mark which we've been enjoying.


Here are some pictures of this week's gathering:

Global Mission Mondays

This week at our prayer meeting we moved from Mongolia into China.  I was a bit overwhelmed reading about China and trying to figure out how best to pray for the country and the believers there.

China has about 15 times more adherents to Buddhism than there are people in Ukraine [Ukraine's population is about 44 million people], with about two thirds of the 1.3 billion people being Buddhist.  China may even have more Christians than there are people in Ukraine, yet Christians make up only 2 or 3% of the entire population.   The communist government strictly controls all religious activity and is officially atheistic. There are 56 ethnic groups in China and Project Joshua further divides these ethnic groups into more than 500 people groups.  There was so much data and so much to search through that I just gave up and we just generally prayed for the country and the believers there, but we could spend months learning about the different groups and their prayer needs.

Pasta rollers are awesome

I'm really excited about dinner tonight. 

How to read a book

A friend of mine recently sent me "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren.  So far I've only gotten a few chapters into it but I thought I'd write a bit about it because in the introduction to analytical reading I found something very similar to the way I try to study the bible and lead bible studies.

They write that there are four basic questions that a reader should ask and try to answer as he reads:

1) What is the book about as a whole? The reader must try to discover the leading theme of the book, and how the author develops this theme in an orderly way by subdividing it into its essential subordinate themes or topics.

2) What is being said in detail, and how? The reader must try to discover the main ideas, assertions, and arguments that constitute the author's particular message.

3) Is the book true, in whole or part?

4) What of it? If the book has given you information you must ask about its significance.  Why does the author think it is important to know these things? Is it important for you to know them? If the book has not only informed you, but also enlightened you, it is necessary to seek further enlightenment by asking what else follows, what is further implied or suggested.

I usually skip step 3 in bible studies because I assume that what we are reading is true, but sometimes I find it helpful to ask "Why is this true?"  [For example: the proposition that obeying your parents is well pleasing to the Lord is true and yet it is still good to ask why is it true that it is pleasing to God when I obey my parents.]  At our Wednesday night home group and at the rehab center I basically go through the text we are studying with these questions.  We have a great time thinking through the scripture and working out what it means without me giving them the answers to what is said, what it means, and how it applies to our lives.  

Global Mission Mondays

A couple months ago our church started to pray for a different country each week at our Monday night prayer meetings.  I had the idea after seeing Joshua Project "Unreached People of the Day" widgets on various blogs and I thought it would be cool for our church to expand our understanding of the global church and global missions. 

Tonight we will be praying for Mongolia and I thought I'd start posting the countries we are praying for and the info about them that I share at the prayer meeting.  I get most of the information from Wikipedia and the Joshua Project.

Mongolia has about 2.7 million people.  30% of them are nomadic or semi-nomadic, 40% live in the capital where crime is a major problem and a third live in poverty with 20% of the population living on less that $1.25 a day.  The main religion is Tibetan Buddhism with around half of the population adhering to a form of it.  About 40% claim no religious affiliation, 4% are Muslim, and probably around 1% are Christian with the rest being various Shamanist religions.  This adds up to 99% of the population needing the gospel.  There are about 26 ethnic groups, most of which do not have a bible translated into their language.  The religious were persecuted before and during the Soviet Union (even though Mongolia wasn't part of the USSR it was influenced by the Soviet policies) and only since 1991 has there been any freedom of religion in Mongolia.

Welcoming February, the begining of the end of winter